In 2022, Billy Napier, then Florida's brand-new head coach, hired Russ Callaway as a defensive intern. Now he's his offensive coordinator.
Napier promoted Callaway on Thursday, his third in as many years.
After that '22 campaign, Callaway switched sides of the ball and moved on the field, to tight ends coach. He was appointed co-offensive coordinator in 2024, and now Callaway will serve as Florida's lead OC.
Napier made clear last month he will continue as Florida's play-caller, a job he has controversially held since taking the job, although it was less controversial with DJ Lagway at quarterback than his predecessors.
"I would say that we have conviction about what we do, how we do it. I think it helped us finish well, helped us go toe-to-toe with some of these playoff teams where we were in position to win, so, yeah, I mean, I think we'll go through a process to kind of get better at everything. And I think we got to continue to build, build, build, right, trying to keep getting better, better, better," Napier said last month "We're always trying to reorganize and evaluate the analytics and kind of see the areas where we struggle a little bit where we need to improve. But in general, conceptually, I think all that stuff proved to be, worked out. We definitely evolved during the season, there's definitely parts of our team where we, staff, reorganized and proved to be beneficial, but we're focused on next year now."
A 2010 Valdosta State graduate, Callaway has previously served as Samford's offensive coordinator from 2016-19, a job he was also promoted into following a year as wide receivers coach.
From there, Callaway bounced to LSU, where he was a senior offensive analyst for Ed Orgeron's failed title defense in 2020, and then spent 2021 as a senior offensive quality control for the New York Giants.
“I didn’t know how good he was, to be honest with you, until we got him,” Orgeron said of Callaway. “And his enthusiasm is infectious. He’s an outstanding coach and taught well by his dad (veteran coach Neil Callaway) and learned well. I do believe the guy’s going to be a coordinator and a head coach. It won’t be long because he’s one of those type minds.”
After ranking 47th in yards per play in 2023, the Gators improved to 29th last season while their win total grew from five to eight.
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